After a Tempest Comes...

By: Daniel Janini

A collection of poems that were and are important for me. Hopefully not another self-important person yelling words Self-taught or ignorant? No-wave or empty noise? Here it is. For what its worth.

An Empty Well
I threw myself at you And you And you A mannequin make out A pollyannic titanic A coin tossed into a dry fountain From which I thought A current would run soon enough

I dont have the power Your beds a cold shower Im swirling; Im swirling Around and down the drain

Vicarious Images
A drop of water Licks your flesh First falling fast Then lingering Adhering in its adoration

The damp hand towel You used to wash Caressed the body So much closer

And now it hangs on the hook Like a limp lasagna noodle

Fermentation
What made you a gallon of curdled milk Waiting to be poured into a glass, Suspiciously sniffed, tasted, Then dumped down the drain with disgust?

Are you a rotten egg Ruined from the start And destined for the dumpster?

Or was it the thousand times you gave in That cemented this sewage system Into your susceptible brain?

Nature or nurture, it doesnt matter; It will ruin your life. So you keep it in the carton, And hide it behind the fresh produce, Stewing in your sour air and Hoping to forget its in your fridge at all.

A Toast
Move your feet; its just a song, you see! Its art, you see! Hes a genius, you see!

Dont think so much and pick up a glass; Crack open a bottle and Pour yourself some spiked Kool-Aid. Heres to blaming it on the alcohol! A toast to your initiation.

One Card Up and One Card Down

I laid it out, the night I had too much When we returned I asked to rest my head And then the way your hands caressed and touched Replayed the night; I laid content in bed

You laid it out later, but I missed the chance Never before and never again

Competitive Inhibition
In my day dreams You were the one. An enzyme and a substrate Surrounded by so much solvent Someday brought together Not by chance But by the fate of physical law A perfect fit So tight and so close

Until I saw you bound to him So I keep floating. A complicated catalyst In low concentrations

After a Tempest Comes.

Radar always searching But the blips turn out boring. Im a loser at a public beach Searching for gold. Finding polished, plastic pearls; I wont take what I can get. I thought that this would be more fun; The stifling seclusion done.

I would fain die a dry death, But its better to hang on To buoyant debris Than to swim for a boat A thousand furlongs to sea When I know Its a delusion. A jellyfish drifting in the Pacific With a million Wal-Mart plastic bags Hidden from the man without a map, My loves use is no ones treasure. Ive opened my chest; I dug deep, but it still waits.

Lots Wife
There are no mountains beyond mountains Sisyphus without a slope or stone Just a sharp pebble in his pocket That he uses to prick his fingertips

My highs are low and my lows are high. Its hard not to dwell. My mouth is still dry From licking salt off the ground And smiling with gritty gums. Cut my hands and knees Crawling up those peaks.

Life in flashbacks and photo albums When Ive got plenty of film

Find a new avenue: Wash my wounds in the water, Take a drink from the stream, Stop picking my scabs, Wrap my hands in gauze, And enter the plains.

Thank you for reading

Contact: dpj13@case.edu